Elizabeth Warren silenced for reading Coretta Scott King letter in senate debate on Jeff Sessions

 

Elizabeth Warren

Senator Elizabeth Warren has earned a rare rebuke by the US upper chamber for quoting Coretta Scott King during the debate on the confirmation of senator Jeff Sessions.
The Massachusetts Democrat ran afoul of the chamber's arcane rules by reading a three-decade-old letter from Dr Martin Luther King's widow written in opposition to senator Jeff Sessions' failed judicial nomination three decades ago.

The chamber is debating the Alabama Republican's nomination for attorney general, with Democrats dropping senatorial niceties to oppose Sessions and Republicans sticking up for him.

 

Mrs King wrote that when acting as a federal prosecutor, Mr Sessions used his power to "chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens."

Quoting Mrs King technically put Mrs Warren in violation of senate rules for "impugning the motives" of Mr Sessions.
The rule, No 19, says senators cannot "directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator."
Mrs Warren was reading from a letter that was written 10 years before Mr Sessions was elected to the senate.

Republican Mitch McConnell invoked the rule and the senate voted along partisan lines, 49-43, to admonish Mrs Warren, effectively barring her from speaking during the remaining debate on Mr Sessions. A vote on his nomination is expected on Wednesday evening.
Democrats pointed out that Mr McConnell didn't object when Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, called him a "liar" in a 2015 dustup.

"I'm reading a letter from Coretta Scott King to the Judiciary Committee from 1986 that was admitted into the record. I'm simply reading what she wrote about what the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be a federal court judge meant and what it would mean in history for her," Mrs Warren said.

Democrats seized on the flap to charge that Republicans were muzzling Mrs Warren, prompting Twitter users to post the King letter in its entirety and defend the Massachusetts senator.
Mrs Warren "has been warned multiple times," Mr McConnell's spokesman Don Stewart told NBC News. "And after additional warning today, she was found in violation of the rule. She appealed the ruling and lost."

The Massachusetts senator was originally warned after reading from a statement by former Democratic senator Edward Kennedy that labelled Mr Sessions "a disgrace".

In response to the rebuke, Mrs Warren read the full letter on Facebook Live just outside the senate.

The episode was followed by lamentations by senate veterans, including its most senior Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah, about how the Senate is too partisan.